Disclosed herein is a method for preventing premature or unnecessary replacement of a consumable used in an image production device, as well as corresponding apparatus and computer-readable medium.
Certain functional units in a printing system may be designed to be customer replaceable as they wear out. As such, they remove the need for a service engineer to attend the machine, and maximize the machine up-time for a customer. These consumables are typically posted to customer sites as required and usually this supply may be controlled by the device monitoring the life of the unit; and requesting a re-order as necessary. Analysis of returned consumable units indicate that many of them did not reach the specified end of life (EOL) point and have therefore been swapped out unnecessarily by the customer or service engineer in the (usually mistaken) belief that this action would fix a problem.
It is common for a helpline service to suggest the consumable replacement as it is often seen as a “cure-all” that prevents the need for a service engineer to attend the machine. The result is reduced consumable life and significantly increased costs to service an image production device over the life of such device.